When I was asked to review this book, I was intrigued. I know many of the chapter authors, some professionally and some a bit more personally. I started it in the way that one would often read a book. From the beginning and methodically, but I became a bit stuck. Then I thought about how the majority of people contributing to the book are Jewish, and so I decided to read it from right to left (like you would do a prayer book written in Hebrew). Once again, I became somewhat paralysed. Eventually I allowed myself to read the chapters as they called to me. Either because the title caught my attention, or because my curiosity about the writer invited my engagement; this worked much better. Like all good books—particularly psychoanalytic ones—what the chapters invited me to do was to start engaging with my own suitcase. Specifically: who and what I carry around with me and why. How they help or hinder me and what items I would want to take with me if I had to make a quick getaway. And unfortunately, in the current climate especially since the October 7th attacks and the surge of antisemitism that has been unleashed across the world, this is something that I do think about often. My suitcase and where I might go. However, I'm also confronted with the reality that perhaps there's no better home than the home I already have and that what we all need to do is make sure that our internal spaces create as much of a sense of peace and wellbeing as is possible in this polarised world that we share. I'll start with a little bit of biographical information about me. On my father's side, I'm 2nd generation British. My grandparents left the Pale of Settlement (Ukraine and Poland) as a result of the pogroms of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Both my grandparents were born there. Having recently seen the film The World Will Tremble, I feel much more empathy to the haunted look and burden that I remember my grandma carrying around with her. Clearly she was unable to process the huge losses of her extended family who were annihilated in the holocaust. Of course, I also remember her warmth and delicious heimisher food. My grandfather never wanted to talk about life in the old country. On my mum's side it's more complicated, but her claim to fame was that her family had been brought to the UK by Sir Moses Montefiore and were already living in the UK when Beethoven was still alive—something that is unusual in the Jewish community. My Dad started a synagogue in Manchester that he could walk to from our house. Yet growing up, there was a complicated and implicit set of rules: don't marry out but don't marry someone religious; be Jewish but not too Jewish; love Israel but don't move there. I think it's fair to say that my suitcase is filled with those paradoxes and particularly after reading this book, I come to see that much of what has taken me in the direction that I've travelled: from musician to general manager to organisational consultant and now psychoanalyst is a kind of intention and desire to uncover what these paradoxes were about and what were the unconscious phantasies that fuelled my very British mother and my more ambivalent father. So, having shown how the book stimulated this diversion, I want to say something about the book and the moments in which I became stuck. Simply, I love this book. I don't know if you are meant to be so emotional in a book review, but that is my reaction to the book. It's a book that deserves attention and to be read. It feels like an act of generosity and a piece of legacy writing from many, if not all, of the authors. I think anyone who wants to understand the journey of the new immigrant and what it's like to try and struggle to find a place, belong, survive and even thrive in a community will benefit from reading this book. You might not be surprised to read that my preference was for the chapters that were less intellectual, academic, and more emotionally transparent. I thought that given how as psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and organisational consultants we are meant to be blank screens, so that we can invite the projections from our patients and clients, there was a level of disclosure and courage that at times took my breath away. I wonder whether it was that breathtaking—or how close it was to my own experiences or those of my parents or grandparents that made it, at times, too close. It hit a nerve and the nerve screamed to be protected for a while. This meant that the book was put down for another hiatus – these are the moments I referred to earlier, as getting stuck or paralysed. However, there is another context. The book was published this year. Just under two years after the 7th October attacks. Since then, the Israeli Government has launched an unprecedented response, ostensibly to defeat Hamas, even though we know that it is impossible. The cost of the Israeli Government's hubris is devastating. Gaza has been flattened and resembles Armageddon. The war has resulted in a terrible death toll in Gaza that some call a genocide; made Israel into a pariah, left Israel at the brink of civil unrest and created schisms within families both there and in the diaspora as well as unleashing a huge, and often attempted to be justified, wave of antisemitism. I wondered whether at times, I was using the book as a psychic retreat or even a justification for where we find ourselves. That was an uncomfortable thought for me. At times the book felt almost a little self-indulgent in the wake of relentless reporting of yet another terrible death toll in Gaza. So, when I think about what paralysed me, at times it was that—a kind of conflict about whether this book was the zeitgeist or whether the book was somewhat out of tune with the world in this moment. Where I have landed it is a book for now and an extremely important and moving one at that. It comes from a place of love, concern and generosity. It starts with the short biographies of the authors along with pictures of them from another time. It describes displacements and traumas as well as attempts to fit in through assimilation. Reading it, one of the things that I was confronted by was my assumptions about the other—in this case colleagues—and how despite working with and knowing a number of the authors reasonably well, I had made assumptions rather than being curious and asking about their stories. I felt that I'd missed an opportunity to know them deeper and was grateful to have rectified this in some small way. I think that too often we are filled with our assumptions and biases, and it leaves out the possibility of just asking someone to say more. To wonder about them and wander with them. To ask where they're from and where they are going and even to see if we can accompany them part of the way. And so I was particularly struck by the idea of the wandering/wondering jew. As Eliat Aram writes. “The wandering / wondering jew: in the sense of moving around or migrating, as well as in the sense of wondering—being curious; the Jewish journey doesn't seem to be ever about staying still and it often means getting lost or losing roots.” I finish with both appreciation for the generosity of spirit within this book and an invitation for people to engage with it, wonder, and maintain their curiosity. Research data are not shared.
Sarah Miller (Sun,) studied this question.